THURINGEN/ HARZ When the head of the Oberhof Forestry Agency Jan Pietzko speaks, his message is unusually clear: the condition of the forests in the state of Thuringia has never been this bad.
More than a fifth of the spruce forests have already died standing, and the destruction is expanding. German spruce forests are in danger of disappearing completely.
If there are similar dry summers and autumns as in recent years, practically nothing can be done.
The situation is a disaster in Thuringia, which is called the green heart of Germany. Forests are also important places for recreation for the local population.
– And since we are in the middle of Germany, we also have many, many sawmills that further process the wood.
The main culprits for the destruction are drought and long periods of heat.
The condition of the spruces has suffered when they have not received enough moisture. The land has dried up deeply, and the forests have therefore not regained their vitality.
The tree’s resistance has weakened, and it has been easy for the letterpress insect to multiply and spread.
– The book printer has ideal nesting conditions in the dried spruce, explains Pietzko.
The same pest attack is underway, for example Bavarian in the state and the Czech Republic where more than half there are fir trees in the forests.
Skeleton forests in the Harz
The situation seems to be worst in the Harz mountain region of Central Germany and especially in its national park. More than 80 percent of the Harz sixes have already been lost.
Skeletons of trees cover valleys and hillsides. A healthy forest can only be seen here and there. Even in the last decade, the Harz was famous for its robust spruce forests.
Tall firs are hardly ever seen here again. Spruce is particularly sensitive to periods of heat, because its roots cannot take up water from deep.
Dead trees in the Harz National Park are not cut down or taken away. There, nature is expected to repair itself.
In some places, you can already see that deciduous trees are growing in the middle of spruce branches and in the wake of forest fires.
Finns help
The German subsidiary of Finland’s Finnharvest has been helping Germans with forest destruction for four years already.
Managing director Olli Oksanen harbors hopes for the end of the printer epidemic, but is a realist at the same time. The warm and dry weather will get the printers up and running again.
If climate scientists’ predictions about global warming come true, in 2100 spruce will no longer have a chance to live in Germany forest experts by. It also tells about the situation Metsälehti.
According to Oksanen, the Harz has already been lost. There is a little hope in Thuringia, but only if nature wants it.
– When the sun starts to warm again in the spring, letterpresses wake up from their “winter sleep”, start flocking and fly to new groves again, says Oksanen in the Thüringen Forest.
The only way to curb the spread would be if there would be longer, uniform periods of wet weather than at present.
However, now, around Christmas and in the spring and winter, efforts are being made to limit the damage. The most effective way is to cut down and transport dead and diseased trees completely.
Finnharvest’s forest machine drivers help the Germans harvest the forest before the printers dry it. In the summer, the damage increases so quickly that the wood harvesters cannot keep up.
According to Oksanen, Finnharvest has also harvested wood in Germany after storm damage. The Germans’ own capacity is no longer sufficient.
– We sell wood harvesting services to both forest owners and wood buyers – both government, private and other operators in the industry.
Finnharvest has experience in timber harvesting in Germany since the beginning of the millennium.
The destruction of spruce trees began on a large scale six years ago. The demand for services is only increasing in Germany.
– The expectation is that the printer will continue his destruction here, says Oksanen.
– But even a healthy forest always needs logging services, and we are also here for the long term. It’s good to remember that Germany’s forest resources and harvesting volume are greater than Finland’s, says Oksanen.
Finns wanted
According to Oksanen, Finnish forest machine drivers have a good reputation in Germany.
– Education is good. I would say that Finnish forest machine operators are often even superior in terms of their skills, Oksanen laughs.
It has been easy for Finnharvest to find forest machine drivers for gigs in Germany. Especially young machine operators and loggers are excited to come to Germany.
Also Miika Rantsi says that he enjoys the German forests. He enjoys independent work where he can see the results of his work.
– The idea once started when I did a farm internship in Germany during my agrology training. Then, when I moved to these jobs, I thought, why not go abroad, says Rantsi, who is from Varpaisjärvi.
Rantsi has repaired forests in the disaster areas of Bavaria and Brandenburg.
– It’s quiet that there are such large areas of fully growing, healthy forest, and then a bug comes and destroys everything. It looks sad, Rantsi describes.
In Germany, a lot of spruce forests were planted after the Second World War, because spruce was easy to plant and grew quickly. Germany needed money for, among other things, war reparations.
What has been learned from the disasters?
– Now we want to do ecological forestry, under the conditions of nature. When you don’t grow just one species of tree, the damage is minimized, because the destruction rarely hits all species at once, says Jan Petzko.
In Thuringia, therefore, we will hardly see one-species wood fields in the future. Other than spruce trees will be planted in the economic forests in the future.
– I hope that in 50 years there will be a mixed forest with at least five tree species growing here. We make sure that healthy trees get to grow and form an ecological forest of the future, says Petzko.
And how are the spruces?
– There will be them in the future as well, but maybe not very old anymore. Now we know that when a spruce cannot get water from deep due to its shallow root system, it suffers faster than species that can absorb water from deep soil layers.
The letterpress is already spreading in the forests of Finland. If the dry periods increase, Germany-like devastation will also be seen in the North.